


In Her Stead

by Stormvoël (BushRat8)



Category: Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies)
Genre: Dreams, F/M, Homesickness, Opium
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-25
Updated: 2018-05-25
Packaged: 2019-05-01 01:02:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14509101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BushRat8/pseuds/Stormvo%C3%ABl
Summary: Barbossa was never cut out to lead a celibate life, and though his heart will ever belong solely to the innkeeper, his body still screams for relief when they're not together.  It should thus be a simple matter of purchasing the services of a working girl in whatever port he happens to be…  but too often, the emotional fallout renders it not simple at all.





	In Her Stead

**Author's Note:**

  * For [walkwithursus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/walkwithursus/gifts).



> The real-life Mistress Ching (alternately Madame Ching, Ching Shih, or Cheng I Sao) began life as a very successful prostitute, then took over her husband's pirate fleet when he died. She was arguably the most powerful pirate who ever lived, male or female, and at the end of her pirating career, she managed to negotiate amnesty with the government while getting to keep all her loot. Smart lady. Captain Teague might be able to issue orders when it comes to questions of abiding by the Code, but no one, not even him, holds one ounce of power over her otherwise. Barbossa certainly knows and respects this. He also knows that when he enters her territory, he does so with her permission and under her protection. It vexes him immensely to owe his safety to a woman, but he's practical enough to know that Mistress Ching's name is one he'd best drop in any situation where it will keep him out of danger.
> 
> This story echoes THE SCENT OF HERBS AND SPICE, but on the other side of the world and minus the observant and understanding working lady. Psychologists have often said that a man can walk into a roomful of women, kiss any one of them, and be very happy. Having talked to several men, my own finding is that this may well be true, but only if they don't have an emotional attachment to someone. That's what Barbossa is finding out for himself as his relationship with the innkeeper strengthens and every paid encounter is measured by what it's like (and how much better it would be) with her. 
> 
> Short postscript follows at the end.

 

 

 

-oOo-  
  
  
  


 

 

  
  
  
Funny how often he ends up in the South China seas,  Barbossa thinks to himself.  Even stranger that Mistress Ching should allow it — before her, her husband allowed it as well — but a bit of tribute offered, plus the promise that he's only passing through, and,  "You're welcome to visit,"  she says, either bidding him come aboard her ship to receive him in person or, more often, sending word through an emissary.  "A fortnight to rest your crew and purchase — not steal! — whatever you need, but then you'd best be off… and understand this, Captain Barbossa:  there's to be no raiding in my waters or other territory while you're here.  Agreed?"  
  
He always does.  What else can he do?  Mistress Ching is one powerful, merciless lady, and neither Barbossa nor anyone else dares to cross her.  The last foolish captain who did so found himself dragged before her and sentenced to have his hands and feet cut off.  
  
In spite of that, Barbossa does enjoy the hospitality she grants whenever he drops anchor just off one of her ports and requests permission to go ashore.  _We need to reprovision_ ,  he writes in his message,  _plus my crew's been long at sea and they need both rest and the soft touch of the ladies_.  
  
_Permission granted, subject to the usual conditions_ ,  the answer comes back.  _One fortnight, no more_.  
  
Barbossa likes these eastern ports, not just for the usual taverns and brothels, but also for the herbalists and their medicines that can effectively treat whatever illnesses he or his crew have contracted, and he loves the markets with their tasty food and colorful, interesting wares.  Fruit can be had in abundance — not the apples he favors, of course, but everything else tangy and tropical, to be eaten as is or made into surprising sweets and beverages — as well as savory preparations of meats and vegetables;  whole roasted fish cooked with spices;  long, slithering noodles, and pockets that hold an infinite variety of fillings;  and the wine is sweet on his tongue.  For a man who's sometimes relegated to eating whatever hasn't rotted (or sometimes, what has, for being captain doesn't assure him of fine fare if the ship's stores are running low), the markets are a veritable heaven.  
  
His belly full of good food and drink, his more lustful inclinations set in, so Barbossa goes in search of one of the higher-class houses of pleasure to find himself a woman.  "Choose, sir,"  the madam says, indicating a lineup of a dozen girls.  
  
The choice used to be easy in his younger years, but since he first made the acquaintance of the innkeeper — and especially since they became lovers — it's not easy at all.  The girls are all dark-haired, as she is, which is something in their favor, but,  _Too young;  I don't fuck little girls_ ,  Barbossa thinks, immediately dismissing four of them out of hand.  _Arms and legs like sticks.  No tits.  Flat arses.  No soft curves a'tall!  Bloody hell, for all I love th' food in this benighted country, why can't I find a woman what suits me tastes?_  
  
Each of the remaining three women is hoping he won't choose her, for while the innkeeper is devoted to him and thinks him beautiful, they don't have that love which would render him appealing in their eyes.  Still, this is their business — they've slept with Western sailors before, and many were far worse — so the one Barbossa eventually picks merely strikes a coquettish pose, then leads him up to her room.  
  
She raises an eyebrow when he shakes his head as she starts to undress, instead taking up the comb by her bedside and bidding her kneel quietly while he unfastens her hair from its pins and smooths it out;  a gentle bit of care he habitually bestows upon the innkeeper that delights him so much that he's now taken to doing it with whores from one side of the world to the other in the effort to feel like he's at home.  It annoys the woman — now she'll have to style and pin everything up again — but he's paid extra for the time it will take, and if this is what he wants…  
  
It _is_ what he wants.  It's what Barbossa has wanted since the night he returned to Grantham House;  nay, since before that:  from the night when Tia Dalma challenged him to think only of the woman he desired so much, and for so many years.  And he can have her a few days, a week, even a month when he takes the _Black Pearl_ into her little island's port, but the rest of the time, when his body insists on release, other women must serve in her stead.  
  
As ever, Barbossa's mind is far away when he presses the woman down on her cotton-stuffed mattress, hooking an arm under one of her knees to raise it so he can slip more deeply inside her;  a position he uses often with the innkeeper because they both love how close it brings them together.  He tries to ignore what he knows he won't get — the innkeeper's hands twisted into his hair, her lips against his neck as she whispers his name, the way she cries and laughs and kisses him, all at the same time — and instead tells himself that at least he doesn't have to use his own hand to obtain relief from the insistent desires that so often plague him.  
  
Very often these days, he's not sure that it wouldn't feel better if he did.  
  
He's thinking so intently of the innkeeper that his climax catches him by surprise and makes him cry out for her, every muscle in his body tensing up and then going limp.  He hopes to look down and find her familiar smiling face gazing up at him — he knows she'd be doing her peculiar combination of giggling and sighing that he loves so much — but it's only a bored and slightly contemptuous-looking whore he finds under him, and what was satisfying just a moment ago is almost distasteful now.  _I want t' go home_ ,  Barbossa can't help thinking.  
  
It embarrasses him and makes him feel like a lost little boy, but,  _Oh God, I want t' go home_.  
  
Barbossa might have left a small bronze coin by way of a gratuity — he's well aware that a tart's life is a hard one and sometimes acknowledges it the only way possible:  with money — but he's been so irritated by the woman's distant, annoyed attitude throughout the entire transaction that his purse remains closed;  instead, he quickly pulls on his clothes and heads downstairs toward the house's entrance, where the madam sits poring over her accounts.  "Ye got any opium?"  he asks.  
  
She does, indeed, and escorts him to a back room where two men are lying languidly on pillows, their eyes glazed over.  They're not regulars in her house, so if she can, she'll roll them for their cash and other valuables.  
  
Having once fallen victim to such a theft when he was young, Barbossa knows perfectly well that she probably intends to rob him, which is why he's carrying only necessary money and an unremarkable sword from the ship's armory that has a sharp-enough edge but not much else;  other than that, he's left virtually everything else of value in a strongbox back on the _Pearl_ , including his most treasured weapons (although he does have a wicked knife in his right boot and a nasty little pistol tucked in his sash).  But right now, he wants to lose himself in his dreams for a few hours.  He wants to go home, and if this is the only way he can do it, then the risks be damned.  
  
Even with these precautions, the madam still gets a warning.  "Mistress Ching knows I'm here,"  he says just as he's taking the pipe from her hand,  "an' she'll not be happy should anythin' happen t' me.  Th' name be Cap'n Barbossa of th' _Black Pearl_ if ye wish t' enquire o'er th' truth of what I say.  Understand?"  
  
The name of Mistress Ching is as well-known in the pleasure quarters as it is on the high seas, and the madam blanches.  "Have no fear, sir,"  she assures him, silently cursing the loss of whatever she might have stolen, but knowing it's just as well he informed her of his identity and connections before she did something foolhardy;  possibly fatally so.  
  
Once settled on a large gold silk cushion very nearly the color of his sash, Barbossa slowly puffs on his pipe and thinks about a small Caribbean island with a quiet inn at the top of a steep lane overlooking the harbor.  He's not sure what time it would be relative to where he is now, so he imagines what would be happening at all times of the day.  _Dawn_ ,  he thinks.  _M' Dove would be a-risin' from our bed an' washin' her face an' hands afore puttin' her clothes on an' combin' her hair.  Then she'll put her cap on an' go downstairs t' th' kitchen.  There be errands t' run after breakfast, wi' bottles an' casks t' bring from th' tavern, or sacks of potatoes an' rice from th' market.  Or mayhap it be just past noon, an' she's cleanin' th' house…_  
  
Barbossa can see clearly the table set for dinner, with himself at the head of it and the innkeeper at the other end, as befits his woman.  She usually serves the lodgers herself, as a servant, but when he's there, he insists that she assign that duty to the maid, Cora, so she can sit down and partake of the meal with him.  That there are lodgers present makes no difference;  all that matters is the two of them, sharing a secret smile over the table as they toast each other;  he with a goblet of wine and she, with honey-sweetened lemon water.  
  
Ah, her dinners:  rich rabbit or mutton stew studded with sweet carrots, ladled over rice.  Potatoes sliced thin and baked with onions and browned, bubbling cheese.  Crispy-skinned spicy chicken, her specialty.  Roasted vegetables with every sort of herb.  The sharp flavor of peppercorns.  Oranges and apples;  fresh water with the juice of lemons and limes.  Fried gammon, newly-churned butter, toasted bread:  those are flavors he always associates with the innkeeper — has done since the beginning, when she was a young girl — and he can taste them now.  Much as he likes the unusual and delicious food of the place he's now in, it's the homely dishes she serves him, always expertly prepared, that sit best on his palate and are closest to his heart.  Wherever he is in the world, it's her cooking he craves.  
  
_'Tis th' seasonin' she uses_ ,  Barbossa thinks, nodding to himself.  _A dish can't help but taste wonderful when it be seasoned wi' such sweetness as she feels 'bout me._  
  
A tear trickles from the corner of his eye when he imagines the innkeeper, clothed in a virginal white nightdress, climbing into bed… alone.  _Ye shouldn't be by yerself, darlin', in that big house, in that big bed_ ,  he sighs.  _I should be there with ye, lyin' aside ye, coverin' ye, keepin' ye warm.  An' ye shouldn't be wearin' a stitch, neither!  Fuck, but I'd give anythin' t' see ye in th' bath right about now, covered in naught but th' bubbles from yer soap_ …  Such thoughts, combined with the opium, provoke Barbossa into starting to harden, but he won't be going upstairs with any of the madam's girls;  not this time.  He'll wait for the return to his ship, to the privacy of his cabin, where he can think about the innkeeper — _his_ innkeeper — as lustfully as he wishes.  When he's separated from her, sometimes his own hand on his flesh really does prove the most satisfactory pleasure of all.  
  
In the next room, the madam is rifling through the pockets and purses of the other drugged men;  but, true to her word, she leaves Barbossa alone.  "Not unless you want to run afoul of Madame Ching!"  she says sharply to one of her cohorts when he starts to look in on the tall foreigner in the grey coat and saffron sash.  
  
The man backs off instantly at the mention of the name, knowing that these barbarians aren't the only ones who will end up with appendages hacked off if they go against Mistress Ching's wishes or rob those she deigns to protect.  
  
Barbossa's tired, and between that and two pipes of opium, he drifts into a half-sleep, dreaming of a soft, loving "Ohhh, Hector!" whispered in his ear;  imagining the familiar taste and feel of his lover as she presses kisses to his lips;  and, when he finally rouses and wobbles to his feet, it's with the desire to return to the _Pearl_ , where he can continue his reverie in the comfortable safety of his own berth.  "Thankee kindly,"  he says to the madam, placing another piece of gold in her palm simply because he's feeling generous for her part in allowing him to make the interior trip home.  "Yer hospitality be much appreciated."  
  
As he nears the front door, Barbossa passes the woman he had a few hours before, accompanied by a new customer she's leading upstairs.  _No one can stand in th' stead of me very own Dove_ ,  he knows, just as he's known it every time he's slept with other women in the hope that they might relieve his loneliness by making him feel as the innkeeper does.  But they never do.  _Not that one.  None of 'em.  Not anyone_.  
  
They can't because they're not her;  because while they may sate the demands of his body, they can't touch the desires of his heart, or soothe the nagging feeling that just won't let go:  _I want — I need — t' go home_.         
  


 

  
  
  
-oOo-  FIN  -oOo-  
  
  


 

  
  
  
-oOo-  Postscript and Author's Musings -oOo-  
  


 

 

  
Since time immemorial, the goal of even the most die-hard sailor has been to survive the sea's dangers and make it safely back to land;  ideally, to his home and loved ones.  Remaining at sea indefinitely à la Jack Sparrow is a pretty fiction, but it's just that:  fiction.  To keep himself in business and retain the [relative] good will of his crew, Captain Barbossa actually spends quite a bit of time ashore in one port or another because he needs to sell his plundered trade goods — textiles, sugar and spices, indigo, furnishings, clothing, and so on — in order to convert them into cash;  that, in addition to giving his crew recreation time and seeing to the constant reprovisioning of his ship if the prizes he takes don't adequately provide what he needs.  But now, he also has a real land-based home and a woman he thinks of as his spouse (even if he doesn't tell her that or say it aloud), and they change the whole dynamic of his life and the way he regards his place in the world.  
  
Rice wine is fairly strong when compared to most Western wines, and there are some local versions that will make you cross-eyed drunk.  It's generally between 17% — 22% alcohol;  the closest Western equivalents would be Madeira, port, or sherry.  Because it's typically served in small quantities, it's enough to give Barbossa a mild buzz but spares him from getting too plastered.


End file.
